Yeah. There were several. Although at least some of them may have been innocent in respect that they may have changed their mind. The Mac Mini was a notable one. However, Apple's statements have always been about products. They have never lied about the performance of their products. This article you mention has many lies and half truths in it though. For example the antenna issue was blown out of proportion by the media. Apple does not measure sales by products sold in to the channel. They measure actual sales. Activation numbers didn't add up with checks in the channel according to Steve Jobs. Try to prove him wrong. He assumed they were counting upgrades, but that doesn't mean something else didn't throw their numbers off. Google hasn't released actual data to back up their claim that he is wrong. Google says their data is right, but they may be counting peak activations in a day or averaging over 5 days or something like that.

why are you overlooking the iPod? It dominated and continues to dominate the MP3 player market.

Great point that many pundits and "analysts" have forgotten. Yup, Apple is going to just sit back and watch as its market share in phones and tablets is chipped away by competitors. Not! Watch the next 12 months to 2 years as Apple introduces a variety of lower priced products in these categories to offer more choice and ensure growth and retain market power. Look for 2-3 tablet choices with varying feature sets; same with the iPhone. We already have the "free" 3GS as an entry point to the Apple ecosystem for many customers.

How is Ice Cream sandwich going to solve all the problems developers have with the platform? Is there something I don't know? Is it going to eliminate fragmentation, remove security holes, create a decent app store, and cause people who buy apps to flock to the platform?

Yes. Here is how:
1. ICS is released
2. Some devices can run it, some can't
3. Android is further fragmented
4. ICS may solve security holes while possibly opening others
5. Eric Schmidt tells developers they will have to write Android apps whether they like Android or not.
6. Problem solved

I'm one of the biggest Apple fans in the world, I've been buying every generation of their products since 1980. And this all seems like "deja vu all over again." Every time Apple creates a great product, with plenty of awesome development tools (I've worked with many of them), and even programs to curate the user experience. But in the long run, they always come in a distant second place. Alone, they simply can't compete with an entire industry.

I don't believe Schmidt's time frame is right, but I really don't see why this ride around the carousel is going to be different from the last. iOS will live and thrive like the Mac, but in 1, 3, or 5 years I suspect a single company can't compete against the entire Android hardware development mob. iOs will become the 10% world-wide market share in hardware and applications will be forced to follow.

Downer I know, but history does tend to repeat itself.

How do you define "distant second place?" What good is 90% market share to Google?

"200 million Android phones have been activated "
Not this again.
Just tell us how many phones have been SOLD.

If Apple started to talk about activations they would have about 500 million activations at least. (you activate with each iOS update, the same with Android)

I like also that Google thinks that they have sold most smartphones. I believe Google have sold a couple of hundred thousand phones. Samsung/HTC have sold devices, but not Google.

If developers are going to develop first for Android, Google have to do something about piracy on Android platform. But Google won't. Its a selling point for Android/Google. Buy the phone and get all apps pirated. It does not affect Google. They just want to sell their advertising and data mine your life.

The last survey I have seen: iOS devices have on average 190 apps installed. Android devices 170. There are more Android phones then iOS (Officially). Somehow 90% revenue for Apple store and 7% for Google store = evidence for high piracy on Android.

And yes: I know that its easy to use pirated software on iOS devices. I simply can't understand todays youth that have to pirate a 1-5 dollar app. I understand piracy if the apps cost to much, but pirate that small about? It is a cultural thing of the internet generation, something that Google share in their DNA. To bad that it have bitten Google hard. Android is now the most expensive free system ever. Google have spent almost 20 billion in patents, Motorola mobile, buying Android, developing Android. Google get about 1 billion revenue from Android/advertising.

This lead to this fun thing: Microsoft make much more money on Android then Google. For each Android device sold almost all Android vendors pay protection fee to MSFT 5-15 dollar. This will generate about 1 billion for MSFT 2012. And this is before all the patent trials are settled. How much will Android vendors have to pay if HTC looses to Apple?

Googles data mining:
Hint to anybody that installed Chrome: Check when Chrome calls home. If you block that port, it automatically tries another port. I have never seen any other program act like it. Have over 300 ports/rules to stop Chrome phoning home before I gave up trying to stop it. I have nothing against Googles products. Chrome is great (webkit) and Android is interesting, but Google should have developed something own and licensed real Unix to avoid having to buy patents and pay of MSFT. There will always be patent disputes when you use Linux.

Googles data mining:
Hint to anybody that installed Chrome: Check when Chrome calls home. If you block that port, it automatically tries another port. I have never seen any other program act like it. Have over 300 ports/rules to stop Chrome phoning home before I gave up trying to stop it. I have nothing against Googles products.

You should just have used SRWare Iron instead. It's Chrome, but without the phoning home.

"Ultimately, application vendors are driven by volume...". What business is he in? The primary purpose of business is to make money. If a developer wants to make money, he's going to develop for a system that will get him paid regardless of the market share. He only referred to the market share of smartphones. Nice of him to leave out tablets since we know how well those Android tablets are selling. I'm sure if you add in iPads, the marketshare would a little different.

These forums are hilarious. This is apple vs microsoft 2.0, been saying it for awhile now. Apple is great at starting new niches, but cannot win in the long run--either too proud (locking everything down), or too stupid.

These forums are hilarious. This is apple vs microsoft 2.0, been saying it for awhile now. Apple is great at starting new niches, but cannot win in the long run--either too proud (locking everything down), or too stupid.

Google hasn't released actual data to back up their claim that he is wrong. Google says their data is right, but they may be counting peak activations in a day or averaging over 5 days or something like that.

This is a key point.

Also, ironic for an organization that exists solely on the basis of mining people's data.

Tim Cook is gay, believes in climate change, and cares deeply about racial equality. Deal with it (and please spare us if you can't).

These forums are hilarious. This is apple vs microsoft 2.0, been saying it for awhile now. Apple is great at starting new niches, but cannot win in the long run--either too proud (locking everything down), or too stupid.

Saying it awhile, eh? Aren't you a sage.

As for winning. Depends on your definition. Where is Apple on the list of most valuable companies in the world at the moment?

"Ultimately, application vendors are driven by volume, and volume is favored by the open approach Google is taking," - this idiot is starting to believe his own bullshit! Just as is their concept of "open" - fragmentation, malware, pirated apps, inability to make money, incompatibility across android devices, mods required across android devices. Hey Eric, APPLICATION DEVELOPERS ARE DRIVEN BY REVENUE!!!!! You fking moron!

These forums are hilarious. This is apple vs microsoft 2.0, been saying it for awhile now. Apple is great at starting new niches, but cannot win in the long run--either too proud (locking everything down), or too stupid.

They did certainly fail in the online music biz and mp3 player market.
/s

This article is link bait so people can fly in here and shout "You're dumb!" or "It's going to happen!"

And to the people exclaiming Windows Mobile will somehow take the market in an attempt to deal with the fact that Android is dominating (depending on your view point) : get over yourself. Microsoft came into this battle WAY too late to matter. Verizon is all over Android like a new high school crush. Their marketing stake in Android put it on the map, and unless something drastically changes, will keep it there. No one has shown ANY proof that Windows will somehow take over the market, but anti-Android pundits (not necessarily iOS fans) like shouting from rooftops that it will be the long term successor. PLEASE, SHOW ME WHY. Honestly, I think it'll even off like it is. Android will swallow up a little bit more of the market, iOS will continue its iron grasp on second place and the "upper tier," and Microsoft will continue to poor money it makes off of Android into Windows mobile.

Also, I disagree that Android will be the dominate platform in 6 months. However, I do think it will eventually. And before you start the "there's no money to be made of Android fragmentation and cheapness!" here's what I've observed: a few months ago the chances of you finding a new app or a company app on both Android and iOS was slim to none. It was usually all iOS. Notice how many companies have an app for Android AND iOS. Notice how a few companies (VAST minority) are even premiering apps on Android before iOS. Whether you agree with it or not, the trend has already started. The ball is already rolling my friends.

The reality is actually opposite to what you say in this post. For iOS, it's VERY easy to pirate apps. All you have to do is jailbreak and get installous and you're laughing. You can get any app, no problem, and work almost always.

With android, you have to try and hunt down apps on torrent websites, with most of them not being available, and when they are, most of the time they don't work (formatted for a different CPU/GPU, different resolution, etc.).

So with android, I actually buy a lot of apps because I have no choice, but with iOS the story is different.

Total nonsense. So the pirated iOS apps just fall into your lap? Someone comes into your house for you to install the app? Studies have been done - and the number of jailbroken iOS phones is insignificant. And considering that you can install pirated Android apps without jail breaking, which one is easier?

Not to mention that the big picture shows quite clearly that iOS software sales outnumber Android software sales by a substantial margin. That wouldn't be true if most people were pirating their iOS aps.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jetz

There'll be lots of comments about how Android is unprofitable for developers and such. Whatever. All this talk is reminiscent of all the threads that said Android would never ever outsell the iPhone (and later when the goalpost moved iOS). Even the supporting arguments have changed. It used to be that nobody would ever want or buy an Android device. Now the argument is that those who buy thme are cheapskates. I'm probably missing a few more stereotypes in here. Others will add them I'm sure.

The difference, of course, is that when people said that no one would buy an Android phone, they were guessing the future.

When it comes to Android vs iOS app sales, we have several years of history to provide factual data to look at. And, clearly, paid iOS apps outsell paid Android apps by a large margin.

Quote:

Originally Posted by anantksundaram

This is probably true more often than we realize. Here's one data point. I was talking to my nephew over Thanksgiving - an Android fan, but contemplating a used iPhone to jailbreak.

I asked him exactly what it was that he wished to jailbreak the iPhone for, and he gave me a list of possibilities. Told him to go browse the App Store.

It wasn't even the end of the evening by when he had decided it was: (i) utterly pointless to be jailbreaking an iPhone; and (ii) perhaps time to jettison his Android phone (but his mom wouldn't allow him do it before the end of contract).

Exactly. I don't know ANYONE who has a jailbroken iPhone.

Quote:

Originally Posted by blursd

Speaking from a developers standpoint ... how exactly does Mr. Schmitz propose the fragmentation issue will be resolved in 6 months? Magic?

If I squint my eyes just right, Mr. Schmidt starts to look like Mr. Ballmer.

Or you could just close your eyes and listen - they SOUND identical.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ron1701

Why should you expect that ? If you buy MS Office for a PC, should you expect to get a free copy if you switch to a Mac ?

That used to be done by some vendors. IIRC, Adobe did it the other way when they were trying to switch Mac customers to Windows.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Robodude

I'm interested to know - why Windows Phone 7. It's not exactly setting the world alight right now. Is Microsoft going to pull off a deus ex machina and suddenly gain a load of marketshare or is this wishful thinking?.

Nokia will be a big help - and Windows Phone 8 actually looks pretty decent. I don't expect MS to suddenly take the lion's share, but I expect their share to grow. And since MS has the tenacity to stick with it, I expect that in a few years they WILL have a respectable market share.

"I'm way over my head when it comes to technical issues like this"Gatorguy 5/31/13

These forums are hilarious. This is apple vs microsoft 2.0, been saying it for awhile now. Apple is great at starting new niches, but cannot win in the long run--either too proud (locking everything down), or too stupid.

Yeah. It sure was great when Zune kicked the iPod's ass. I'm sure the new Galaxy Player is selling like hotcakes too.

You're right about one thing though. Google is Microsoft 2.0. Every time Schmidt talks, I'm reminded of the ending of Animal Farm. These two very smart nerds from Stanford get together, form a great company with a great product, and promise each other not to be "evil." But now they are just like Microsoft in the 1990s. But Google isn't making money on Android hand over fist like Microsoft was on Windows, so they're evil like MS, just suck at making any money at it. Maybe that's what they meant by "Don't be evil"

What a joke - there are so many inaccuracies in this article that it is laughable. And where is that "volume" selling dell tablet now? Oh yeah, Dell just abandoned it because it was selling so well.

Regardless of how crappy the the Dell tablet is (and believe me, it's awful ) You can't really argue with that point in the article. The iPad 2 was not the first dual core to sell in volume, and there really isn't any argument against that

Regardless of how crappy the the Dell tablet is (and believe me, it's awful ) You can't really argue with that point in the article. The iPad 2 was not the first dual core to sell in volume, and there really isn't any argument against that

So if you really want to know what Schmidt's "open" world is like, you need to read this Sony blog post on why Ice Cream Sandwich won't be released on their phones FOR MONTHS even though the code has been released by Google... How many ways can you say cluster FK...

Funny things when the Android OS market is fragmented. You'll continue to see iOS first for a very long time. Why? One OS on devices from 4 years ago on is why. The Android market sees several versions out there making it difficult to code to and test against. Develop to the easy and stable platform drawing in money then develop to the larger fragmented market to get brand recognition at least and maybe a bit of money.

Regardless of how crappy the the Dell tablet is (and believe me, it's awful ) You can't really argue with that point in the article. The iPad 2 was not the first dual core to sell in volume, and there really isn't any argument against that

This article is link bait so people can fly in here and shout "You're dumb!" or "It's going to happen!"

And to the people exclaiming Windows Mobile will somehow take the market in an attempt to deal with the fact that Android is dominating (depending on your view point) : get over yourself. Microsoft came into this battle WAY too late to matter. Verizon is all over Android like a new high school crush. Their marketing stake in Android put it on the map, and unless something drastically changes, will keep it there. No one has shown ANY proof that Windows will somehow take over the market, but anti-Android pundits (not necessarily iOS fans) like shouting from rooftops that it will be the long term successor. PLEASE, SHOW ME WHY. Honestly, I think it'll even off like it is. Android will swallow up a little bit more of the market, iOS will continue its iron grasp on second place and the "upper tier," and Microsoft will continue to poor money it makes off of Android into Windows mobile.

Also, I disagree that Android will be the dominate platform in 6 months. However, I do think it will eventually. And before you start the "there's no money to be made of Android fragmentation and cheapness!" here's what I've observed: a few months ago the chances of you finding a new app or a company app on both Android and iOS was slim to none. It was usually all iOS. Notice how many companies have an app for Android AND iOS. Notice how a few companies (VAST minority) are even premiering apps on Android before iOS. Whether you agree with it or not, the trend has already started. The ball is already rolling my friends.

Google:
No platform building experience
No UI experience
No hardware experience
No customer support experience
No customer service experience
No retail experience
No real unique vision that we've seen as of yet
A weak eco system
No stable consistent delivery system
Fragmented platform
etc., etc., etc.
They may get there eventually but Apple is already there & moving forward. As far as hardware goes there is nothing that stops Apple from updating hardware on a biannual (or whatever is nec.) basis if that even becomes an issue (hurts sales). So while Google is ironing out all this Apple is not standing still. It ain't gonna happen overnight.

Untrue. You've seen what they've recently done with all of their services? They've change the UI of YouTube (lol, been using ACleanerYouTube for years), Gmail (lol, been using OS X' Mail for years), and the like to a more modern, cleaner look.

And, quite frankly, it looks like they're starting to copy Windows Phone 7 in how their services look.

Wouldn't that just be the most hilarious thing? Google getting sued for stealing Microsoft's GUI